AIBU to ask why so many £1m houses....

We house hunted last year for larger houses where sellers tended to be empty nesters downsizing. Large price tags. Almost all of them would have needed new kitchens and/or bathrooms in the next couple of years. I think people do that stuff when they first move in and then stick with it.

New kitchens and bathrooms are expensive, lots of effort and might not add much to the sales price.

Maybe they’re happy with their kitchen and bathroom and are not like the fly by night lot who want it changing every 5 years because “fashion” changes. Proper wealth doesn’t change every 5 minutes.

I see a lot of expensive houses that look very old fashioned, it had me thinking a lot of them were homes of older people who haven't had the energy/motivation to update and have now died or gone to a care home.

Yep.

We paid £995,000 for our house in 2015. Was on for £1,150,000. 6 minute walk from the station, 35 mins to Victoria/London Bridge, 12 miles from Central London. Awesome state schools albeit irrelevant to us and adjacent to a nature reserve.
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It had swirly carpets, red velvet curtains, a pink bathroom and a blue bathroom and the kitchen was two tone khaki and mustard with mustard tiles with a three tone hexagonal pattern. 3500 sq feet, arts & crafts house and unsullied.

We spent £375,000 renovating to perfection and it's worth about £1,800,000 now.

Because they weren’t bought for £1m. My house cost £1.3 but the seller had bought it in 1973 for less than £100k. She worked in admin and he sold cars… they weren’t rich enough to be able to do it up every decade so the rooms aged.

It needs a good £200k of work to make it a good modern home.

Where is this? Just being nosy!

Like my late Father. It was untouched from 50 years ago and there was no way he was ripping out kitchens in his 80’s.

We were inundated with offers because it was a desirable part of London and a blank canvas

My immediate thought was that the people who own these £1m houses are probably older, bought the house two to three decades ago with a mortgage of two and a half times annual salary and possibly updated their kitchen/bathroom then to the standard of the day.

They've then lived there since then, happy with their kitchen/bathroom; or, if not happy, still on a similarish income as when they bought the house, with the cost of replacing the kitchen/bathroom nowadays outstripping what they could afford to do. Especially if they have since retired and have significantly less money coming in too.

I see a lot of houses round my way that this would describe. Just because their house is worth that much NOW, doesn't mean they'd be in a position to buy it NOW at the price it now commands.

A lot of houses in this bracket round us are being sold by people who have lived in them for 30-40 years. They are dated but still good houses. Then the new people put the new kitchen in!

Yep. For £2.5m I got 80s fittings, collapsing ceilings and many, many “iffy” smells! Not a single thing you would keep, other than the actual structure.

The cost of living is affecting everyone.

We bought our house in that price bracket a few years ago. We planned to do a utility room extension and change bathrooms, etc. But then all the builders buggered off post Brexit and the cost of the planned extension doubled. And the Truss budget pretty much doubled our mortgage repayments. And then Labour slapped VAT on school fees. And then stupid wars pushed the oil price up (no gas here so we have an oil boiler). We are paying thousands more a month just to stand still. So the utility room is unextended and the bathrooms are a bit old and knackered. 🤷‍♀️

We didn’t really compromise on anything, it’s not an old house, so luckily everything was quite new and decorated beautifully. It needs some painting and general maintenance though as the previous owners were quite elderly and there was only so much they could keep on top of. But we fell in love with it, it was our dream house and I’d call the agents regularly checking it was still available (they wouldn’t consider an offer until we had sold ours).

If you are noticing the houses over £1 million are struggling to sell in your area, and are on the market 6 months to a year, I would say make an offer if it is a house you love. Do your homework - look at sold prices, square footage and call the agents and be bold and confident and honest about what you think it is worth, what you can pay, how much you love it… and mention the updating it needs. But at that price bracket, make sure you do love it… stamp duty alone will be eye watering (over £60,000)!

This. Lots of people who have money, have it because they're careful with it. Dont get a new kitchen every 5 years - they get a decent spec one and expect it to last 20, 25 years.

A relative has recently put their 5 bed g2 listed house on the market for £1.5m (middle of valuations).

They spent a huge amount of money on it when they bought it 20 years ago including a new kitchen and two new bathrooms.

They debated about redoing kitchens and bathrooms to sell but decided against it. Partly because there is nothing wrong with anything. It all still works well and is in good nick. Partly because, as others said above, many people will want things exactly to their taste and will rip them out. Their kitchen is shaker style and doesn’t look particularly dated. Plus the estate agent said it wouldn’t really add much value if any at all.

However, they’re looking to downsize, ideally a bungalow in a central location so they can manage in old age. They have seen some bungalows that are £800k plus that haven’t been touched since the 80s, with no kitchens/just one or two units and a sink. My guess is they’re aimed at developers who’ll be looking to knock the bungalow down and put up two new build houses in its place. They are centrally located and in catchment for outstanding schools. From a financial perspective it’s the sensible move, hence no point in making the houses look habitable.

Where I live (not UK) 1M gets you an old, century old shack. Most people buy it, tear it down and build a new one.

I, however, live in a social housing and cannot even dream of every owning a house. even though I have a very good job and have worked most of my life. So, yes, there is that.

Not sure why you would be surprised? That is the housing market. We paid an awful lot more than that last year for a house we are currently gutting.
My advice would be to buy the one that is in the best place, structurally sound, but shittest on the inside. People today seem to have zero vision so you can upgrade and add an awful lot of value.

Around here 1 million on a standard Victorian 3 bed terrace would mean it was as close to uninhabitable as you can get whilst still being mortgageable. I’d expect 90s fittings trashed by decades of renters and an iffy smell.

From what I’ve seen the vast majority of UK housing stock at all price brackets is in a dire state of repair. Cost of living + declining living standards overall no doubt contribute. But also at the cost of building work these days it’s unlikely you’ll even recoup what you spent, let alone compensation for the hassle and risk of renovation. Oh let’s not forget the government grabbing a 20% bonus of whatever you spend on trying to make the place more modern. So yeah most houses are in appalling state, much like everything else.

if it’s functional why rip it out? Our bathrooms aren’t v modern but it’s really not environmentally friendly to rip out functional bathrooms that aren’t your taste. And your taste will probably be totally different in 10 years to.

We have just absolutely bust a gut and spent about 2k prepping our house so it looks attractive to sell.

All the estate agents who valued it priced it basically the same as the other similarly sized houses on the same streets. The prime locations near the park get 15k more, the side streets without parking get 15k less.

Looking nice helps get people in the door, but it doesn't do a massive amount for final value.

OP, we bought a £5m house in London with no kitchen, no lights, wonky floors hideous bathrooms. It's called a fixer upper.

I understand your view and I notice that these houses often are overpriced and have to adjust expectations unless they are in an exceptional position/lication.

A lot of older people live in these high value properties, probably for many many years. They may be asset rich but cash poor particularly if they’re lower income pensioners.

A lot of these people moved in many years and didn’t actually pay a million pounds so maybe they can’t afford to update?

As people have said, value comes from a lot of things. If you went down a bedroom, for example, but kept the same price, it would probably be in better shape.
(I’m not saying you should look for one less bedroom, just giving an example)